Episode 3 focuses on efforts to restore areas that have been damaged by modern practices back to their original natural state. Sever organizations both public and private are featured including The Columbia Land Trust, The Audubon Society, and the Columbia Slough Watershed Council. Eating well features wild foods gathered from the natural environment and prepared as part of the GingerRoot Festival.

This is a repeat and re-cut version of our featured program recorded August 2010. Three experts discuss the problems facing pollinators of all types but especially the honeybee. Mace Vaughn, director of pollinator conservation at the Xerces Society, Ramesh Sagili, Senior researcher at Oregon State University department of Horticulture, and Glen Andresen, a local bee keeper and master gardener are the guests. We also paid a visit to the Foothills Honey Company. Commercial bee producer and pollination service operator George Hansen takes to a blueberry farm to show us how the business works. George is worried about losses due to CCD and believes agricultural methods and the lack of sustainable practices are contributing to the problem. His operation tries to mitigate those problems.

The land known as Cascadia covers the Pacific Northwest from British Columbia in Canada to the middle of California. Bisected by the Cascade mountain range this bio-region is diverse and beautiful. This episode focuses on the area and it's resources and the efforts of organizations to protect and preserve it. These include the Columbia Land Trust, Columbia Slough Watershed Council and the Audubon Society's backyard habitat program. Hidden Connections shows us hot to restore a sense of place to our lifestyles.

This is the lead off to Part two of our series on Sustainable Cities and Urban Ecosystems. The first episode features the Paddle to Quinault canoe convergence and a close up look at native culture and sustainability as it pertains to the building of community and urban ecosystems. Cultural traditions such as canoe carving, dance and song are the backbone of sustainability in the Native American world. We also look at resource management with a visit to the tribal fish hatchery on Quinault lake in Washington State.

The City of Portland Oregon has many contributors to the sustainability movement both public and private. We take a look at just a sampling of the programs in place that make Portland a model city for sustainability. These include the Portland Farmers Market, The Bureau of Environmental Services and Portland State University to discover why sustainability is academic.

Sustainable Today revisits a topic we covered in 2011. The interview features Katie Barrow, PR manager for Fair Trade USA. It is the only independent third party certifier of fair trade products in the US. Katie explains what fair trade is, its history and how it’s certified and verified. Social as well as economic impacts on developing world producers is examined.

BUSINESS SPOTLIGHT: Portland Roasting Company. Managing Partner Mark Stell, takes us through "Direct relationships" and this company’s efforts to go straight to the source. They verify and certify all the coffee they buy directly without third party support. Money is channeled back to communities to solve problems of water quality, education and better growing techniques. Projects are designed to align with Millennium Development Goals. Portland Walk for Water is sponsored by the company to raise awareness and money for more projects.